The Final Design Cycle

We have made small changes, therefore we are posting a new website which leads you to read our new design cycle. Please click on the website below;

http://www.scribd.com/full/14792130?access_key=key-nwsejvzbo5nwa163qmt

Thank you!

whole design cycle

We finally put the whole design cyle into one document.

http://www.scribd.com/full/14769300?access_key=key-2lvwl0seuav1u6z0lrv2

Process Journal

Here is our process Journal, we have been keeping a record on the microsoft document and now we are posting it.

http://www.scribd.com/full/14768183?access_key=key-2idr1s8qoah75riqdncs

Final Products

We finally finished our products - the blog and the powerpoint presentation.



the link to our powerpoint presentation is



http://www.scribd.com/doc/14762299/Web20final



and the link to our blog

http://kgpdesigncycle.blogspot.com/

well, now after finishing the whole thing, we think that the web 2.0 should be used in schools!!

Web 2.0 in Art

Artgonia; this is an "art portal where independent artists can publish their work for the world to see. The picture is a screen shot of the website."

Useful website of Web 2.0

Hi everyone! I just found a great website talking about web 2.0 in ideas, technologies and implications for education. I thought it could be useful for any of us to get more ideas about web 2.0 in many different point of views.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701b.pdf

Web 2.0 in Art - Maccaca

Maccaca.com; "The premier site for people with artistic talent. Maccaca is an online network for connoisseurs of artistic talent and artists. It provides a platform for all artists – actors, dancers, musicians, singers, lyricists, writers, painters, photographers, etc." The picture on the left is the image of the website. www.maccaca.com

Web 2.0 in Art - DoodleIsArt

DoodleIsArt; this is "a place where young artists can display their drawings. Adults and children can enjoy drawings from the world." The picture on the left is the screen shot of the home page of "DoodleIsArt". http://www.doodleisart.com/

Web 2.0 in Art - Artgonia

Artgonia; this is an art portal where independent artists can publish their work for the world to see. The picture is the screen shot of the website (http://www.artgonia.com/);

ECONOMY

These is a list most of the web 2.0 tools which can be used to help people in economy and also understanding economy in depth.

1. Aid page – This is a web 2.0 tool which helps people understand economy in more detail. http://www.aidpage.com/
2. Associated content – this web 2.0 is also for economy. It contains most of the vocabulary which helps people in understanding economy with ease. http://www.associatedcontent.com/
3. Democracy2.0* - This is contains information on the economy subject. http://d2.stevemagruder.com/hub.php

These are some more tools of web 2.0

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is a multilingual encyclopedia, which means that people can have access to it in his own native languages. It also ranks 2nd

Disadvantages
Anyone can edit it, therefore, sometimes the information cannot be reliable, therefore teacher and professors do not recommend Wikipedia.

Advantages.
More sources means the information can be accurate.
Quick and easy to find the desired information.
Great for finding facts and general knowledge.
Information is clearly explained and also very well distributed.

Social impact
Wikipedia help the users to find a variety of facts and history. It help children in their education, therefore it increases their general knowledge.


MySpace

It is also a social networking place, just like Facebook. It provides users with blogs, personal profile, photos, music, and videos for teenager and adults internationally. MySpace was the most popular social networking website in United States in June 2006.

Advantages
You can find your old friends on MySpace.
You can also communicates.

Disadvantages
People spend hours socializing

Social impact.
It does effect the once social life. As this is a social networking site. Therefore children which are amazed by this spend a lot of time on these site. This affects their education also.

This is a graph which shows the rise in the visitor from year Nov 2006 to Jan-2008. there has been a rapid change in the amount of visitors from Jan 2007 to Sep 2007. there is a increase of about 12,000 visitors.

Web 2.0 tools

these are 2 of the tools which come under the tree of web 2.0:

YouTube.
It is a video sharing website where, an individual can upload or share his/her video and view other videos. YouTube is another example of Web 2.0, this is because it is a way of communicating, as we look at each others videos and get to learn more things. Youtube was introduced to people in 2005. According to a site, which show that YouTube ranks no. 1 in the largest web 2.0 sites. About 80,600,000 visitors monthly.

Disadvantages
• Crappy content
• Fake content
• Low quality
• Annoying tag in videos
• Sometimes there are inappropriate stuff

Advantages
• You can become famous
• Tons of uses
• Tons of users mean Tons of content

Social impact.
We get to interact with many people and also get to know their dislikes and likes. It makes you learn more thing and develop yourself. You can also find the TV shows which were missed by you and also for educational purposes.


Facebook.
It is a social networking website. User can share photos, videos, chat, play games, add friends and many more. According to one of the website, which shows that Facebook ranks no. 2nd among the top web 2.0 sites.

Advantages
• Allows finding new and old friends and being in contact with them.
• Easier to join group and have the same like and dislike.
Disadvantages
• Overcrowded
• Stalking is possible
• Acquaintances be labeled as friends
• In Facebook networks, people can look at your profile and therefore there is no privacy.

Social impact
Due to the interesting things that Facebook provides the users, make them very addictive to it. Therefore they spend hours on Facebook chatting and interacting with other people around the world.

Wikipedia

Web 2.0 tools are part of the formal curriculums, or for special classes / group projects, etc. With that, we can say something in terms of group activity on subject matter. Because web 2.o is a collaborative (and networking) phenomenon, the Wikipedia might be the best choice for educative application. It provides students the basis for:

• independent and collaborative research
• studying, and learning
• critiquing or critically reviewing researched materials
• structuring content
• composing process
• editing
• composition approval and final sign-off

There are still other activities not noted here.

"Wikipedia projects can go a long way in developing new knowledge, skills and abilities as well as understandings of the human component behind, within and in front of the technology the students are using (that they are an integral part of the 'system'). And a concomitant outcome of a wiki project can / may be the facilitation of improved or increased social maturation of the students."

*phenomenon = any observable occurrence (from wikipedia)

Web 2.0 for Universities

I have been researching about Web 2.0, and I found one university that discussed about how effective the web 2.0 can be, and the pros and cons.

“Kansas State University”, in United State, investigated to find out what Web 2.0 could mean for universities. Harriet Swain, the education guardian of the Kansas State University talked about the survey he’s given to the students and weighs the pros and cons.
Created from an online survey, it involved students surveying themselves, demonstrating how useful web 2.0 can be for universities in market research. In this survey results, it will be shown as an example of how effective web 2.0 technologies are in projects involving collaboration.
“Brian Kelly, UK web focus at UKlon, the national center of expertise in digital information management says that two years ago everyone was wondering whether web 2.0 had any relevance for higher education. Also says, ‘I think that’s generally accepted now.’”
“Les Watson, interim director of information services at Royal Holloway, University of London and a consultant for the Joint Information Systems Committee, which supports universities’ online activities goes further. ‘Anyone who thinks about learning and teaching and looks at these technologies cannot avoid taking advantage of them.’”
Nowadays most of the universities are taking advantage of web 2.0. Some are allowing students access to podcasts and videos for their lectures. Some others schools are encouraging students to collaborate through Wikis and using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to organize their own work. And many others are now giving feedback to their students’ works through Skype and using other social networking sites, both for their own research and to encourage students’ debate.
“Watson set up a Facebook site asking for suggestions from students what they would like to see provided in the new space. 200 students have given comments and they were constructive, however Watson admits: “You also had a few people with an axe to grind.” – this highlights the fact that web 2.0 presents dangers too. One institution reported three examples of serious problems in one year involving students' use of the new technology including the victim of a student scuffle using Facebook to identify the address of his attacker, and getting his revenge.”
There is also awareness for students who have been accessed to podcasts and YouTube videos of lectures, they may not bother turning up to the real thing. This may affects their education and grades.
“These dangers are surmountable. Institutions are issuing guidelines to students about how to keep safe while social networking, but students are still turning up to lectures. However, copyright and intellectual property issues involved in web 2.0 remain vague, and it’s not yet entirely clear how far students want universities invading their online space.”
“A survey carried out last year showed that 65% of sixth formers hoping to go to university used social networking sites, but most failed to see how they could be used for teaching and resented the idea that academics could interfere in a forum they saw as primarily social.
Most of those involved in universities’ use of web 2.0 nevertheless insist that institutions should not become overcautious. Kelly says; ‘Universities should be risk-taking organizations. Learning is a risky process.’”

Pros and Cons

"Determining the advantages and disadvantages of particular activities for people and organizations is an important task." The followings are the advantages and disadvantages which determines the truth about the social media, web 2.0, and blogging technologies;

Advantages of Social Media;
• Democratization of media.
• Create a new relationships.
• Creativity and re-mix culture.
• Embrace your passion and identity.
• Community, sharing, and connecting.
• Increase transparency in government and organizations.

Criticisms of Social Media;
• Lots of great content still gets overlooked. Current lack of good filters creates problems finding the best content.
• Writers have problems delivering content consistently.
• It can cause many problems through the conversation which are sometimes misunderstood.
• overload of their information and the social networkings.

Maths and Web 2.0

Using web 2.0 tools for Maths-

Our group decided to focus on the details of how web 2.0 can be used in specific subjects and we decided to look at each subject in particular-
So, I found web 2.0 tools for mathematics:

For that I have decided into various sections:

Wikis – it is a page or a collection of web pages where we can contribute and get the information from.

7th grade math wiki from Alabama - http://7math.wikispaces.com/

Mathematical Association information on math club http://www.maa.org/students/middle_high/

GeoGeBra Wiki – includes Algebra and geometry for middle school http://www.geogebra.org/en/wiki/index.php/English#Algebra

Algebra 1 wiki page -http://robertfant.com/PMWiki/pmwiki.php/Algebra1/HomePage

Question Point homework help - http://wiki.questionpoint.org/Homework+by+Subject

Mathcasts and ExamView Wiki (Math247) - http://math247.pbwiki.com/

Blogs- there are also various blogs related to maths.

Video- Screen casts mainly focus on mathematics and they are screen movies with writing and voice. And the screen casts are further organized according to each topic , type and course - http://www.mathcasts.org/

Social networking groups – There is a Middle school math teacher community - http://www.classroom20.com/group/middleschoolmath

Podcasts – they are a series of audio or digital media files which can be subscribed for. The Educational Podcast Network is the place where teachers can look for the content to be taught and also to explore the issues of teaching and learning - http://epnweb.org/. Then, one can also go to iTunes stores and search for middle school maths and find various math series.

Free math homework help – The math teachers are there to help if one is stuck with any math problems. Math mentor, produced by the Santa Clara Country Office of Education, helps students with their math problems. Students can receive help either live from the teachers or off air - http://www.mathmentor.tv .

Other web 2.0 resources on maths –
Real World Math – this is the website for the people who want to discuss something beyond the textbook. http://realworldmath.org/iWeb/Real%20World%20Math/About%20the%20site.html

• Word Press Math Publisher – it allows publishing math equations by blogger. http://mathforum.org/mathtools/tool/44421/
• For those who need the English terms to be translated into Spanish, there is a bilingual mathematics dictionary which does that. http://nw.pima.edu/dmeeks/spandict/

So, we can see that there are many tools available only for a single subject and these tools can help the children to not only discuss their ideas but also to get help when they are stuck.

Educational Blogging

"Blogging has quickly become one of the most effective learning tools in education today. It introduces students with new methods of communicating, improving their writing, and helps motivate them to find their voice. Educators generally write blog about school news, philosophies, and class activities. On the other hand, students tend to write about current events, personal beliefs, and topics related to their education. Many teachers have noted this as well, that the students would publish to their school blogs even when not instructed to. Students really enjoy reaching out to the world and they are so motivated by it that they want to write even more. They would describe how their day was, what they learned in class, or even things they learned or read on the news that day.
Many students became so attached to their blogs that they made it a responsibility to keep consistent. When they found they have been lacking in posts or that they haven’t been instructed to post for class in in a while, they would often apologize and feel as though they deserted their readers. It’s pretty interesting, although expected, to see that kind of connection with students and their blogs. Most of the students refer to other posts by other students in their writing, but do not appear to take advantage of trackback or pingback functionality."

Students testimonials;
“At the beginning of the year when we started blogs, I didn’t really feel like doing these, and I thought that they were just a waste of time, but I was WRONG! I have loved having these blogs and I learned a lot about writing, people, things happening with my friends, I met new people, I have learned ALOT about things going on in the world, and I learned that I can be free to write what I want, and I like how people would disagree with me, becasue it just encouraged me to write more.” – Hillary.
“When I wasn’t in the weblog group I would still be writing one paragraph essay. Now I’m writing a page essay.” … “Weblogs are helping me a lot.” – Jhonathan.

General testimonials;
“Never in 25 years of teaching have I seen a more powerful motivator for writing than blogs.” … “And that’s because of the audience. Writing is not just taped on the refrigerator and then put in the recycle bin. It’s out there for the world to see. Kids realize other people are reading what they write” – Mark Ahlness.
“The response has been tremendous. Students seem so much more willing to blog in their own space and time. They seem less inhibited and more enthusiastic.” – Beth Lynne Ritter-Guth.
Some teachers noticed something in their students; “Even when they’re out sick, students work on their blogs.” – Carol Barsotti.

IBM and The University of Arizona are teaming up to teach about Web 2.0 and Social Networking to give students skills in creating and managing online communities. What’s interesting is that it’s not just a presentation or learning event – it’s an actual full course! Seems like students from The University of Arizona are learning about Web 2.0 products and social networking from a business standpoint to give leadership, communication, and community-building skills. One UA student in a Digg comment thread provided readers with the official course description from the university website:
“Online social networking and communities have become a big role in how organizations interact within themselves as well as with external partners. Developing a healthy community can lead to new business opportunities, improved customer relations, as well as improved communications to the world. Online social network sites already claim over 300 million members worldwide in public sites that are starting to turn into a new generation of b2b and b2c business collaboration and brokerage sites. This course investigates the technologies, methods and practices towards developing online communities, and how this knowledge and these skills are applied to businesses. The course will involve lectures facilitated by the instructor and corporate representatives. Also incorporated will be experiential exercises and skill development assignments”

"The press release also states, “The class will culminate in a final project where each student from the class will work with their own separate group of students from Howenstine High School in Tucson, Arizona, to organize into many micro-communities.” Sounds like a fun and informative class. And according to Torrentfreak, The Univeristy of Arizona will be the first to offer “Web 2.0 courses”. It will certainly open up a new world of technology to students."

*IBN = Instance-Based Network
*These are mostly original from the other websites, and because it is perfect as it is, i will keep this as it is. For more information, please visit the original website; http://p2pfoundation.net/Educational_Blogging

Disadvantages and advantages of web 2 + some technology

There are some advantages and disadvantages of using web 2.0.

Advantages – with the use of web 2.0, information can be received from various places. People will have their freedom of speech and can express their ideas freely. Web 2.0 has made the internet more personalized and now you can talk all over the world. Now the people with low levels of computer skills can also use it easily.

Disadvantages- it leads to low quality of the actual content. As most of the services are free, the security is very low and the websites can be easily targeted by the hackers.

Web 2.0 and technology: Ajax technology is behind Web 2.0. It is creating the desktop experience in the browser again. It consists of writing JavaScript that manipulates the Document Object Model (DOM) of the host page, uses Xml Http Requests and callback objects to send and receive data asynchronously. Maintaining a JavaScript code base for large- scale applications is a major concern

In web 2.0, you require things instantly, for that we can think of tools such as Joomla or Drupal which allow to establish a web 2.0 website quickly with all sorts of functions in it such as blogs, forums, surveys, Google gadgets. This functionality is already prebuilt and minimal effort is needed to set up and run the site but you need to have complete control over the user interface (UI) and also need to configure fine – grained security.

Interview

I have interviewed a student who has done Electronic engeneering and presently doing MBA. His thoughts on this topic were as following.

"Web 2.0 is the latest protocol which is used for accessing internet. this is because it enables the interactive communication. It is a new to socially network yourself. it allows you to learn more things, but the are also some disadvantages to this. As because the childern get distracted and they spend hour on the sites like Orkut and facebook. They have also opened the areas of cyber crime, example hacking the personal information, breaching of privacy and morphing. "

web 2.0 and education!!!!!!!!

Web 2.0 is now being used in education as well and some of the Web 2.0 tools used are –

· Blogging- Blogging is increasingly being used by the students. Its journal format helps students to keep a record of their thoughts over time. This also allows comments from people and they can be by the teachers, peers or a wider audience. The result is finally a truly democratic learning space.

· The other option adopted is podcasting, as it pushes education content to learners. For example, Stanford University along with Apple has created Stanford iTunes University and the students can subscribe to a range of digital content by using Apple’s iTunes software.

· Flickr, the photo sharing site has also found a place within education as it allows students to search for images to be used for their presentations and coursework. The tagging of images makes it much easier to use. It can also help the students to publish their digital photography to a wider audience and then it also allows getting people’s feedback.

discussion on flickr..

The various other tools that can prove to be very useful for education purposes are:

· Stu.dicio.us – it helps students to writ public notebooks in an outline – format, store files for classes, create a schedule, track their grades, manage to-do list. It also allows them to connect with their friends.

· Gradefix: students that use this feel less stressed and it also improves their grades. This allows them to create a study schedule to prioritize and organize their homework throughout the week. It is described by Gradfefix as, “Gradefix intelligently organizes and prioritizes all of your homework so you are always on top of it.”

· Chalksite: it is made for the teachers, parents and the students providing the teachers with an opportunity to communicate with the students, parents, send messages, manage a website for their course and post grades and assignments.

· MynoteIT: this allows students to take online notes including to do lists, grade management, WYSIWYG note editor and assignment reminders. The students can also share their notes and get feedbacks from their friends.

· Backpack is another nice one and it includes file storage, calendars, to do lists, note taking. The students can create pages in their organizer for each class and also manage notes on class discussions and they can also class documents.

This is just a picture of some of the tools available in web 2.0. well, there are many web 2.0 tools available.

Research on what is web 2.0 and how is it different from web 1.0?

What is web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is the popular term given to the advanced applications and internet technology. It is the second generation of World Wide Web that basically works because of people sharing their ideas online. The two major technological advances that constitute web 2.0 are enabled by Ajax and others such as Eclipse and RSS.
But critics commenting on web 2.0 say that it becomes too easy to affect online that web content could suffer a lot but the defenders defending it say that these problems have existed since the beginning. The final judgement however is left to the users.

The differences between web 1.0 and web 2.0:



Web 1.0 was computer based.
Web 2.0 uses the web as a platform.

Web 1.0 relied on installed software.
Web 2.0 uses the browser.

Web 1.0 was solitary.
Web 2.0 encourages sharing.

Web 1.0 was individuals working.
Web 2.0 is community sharing wisdom.

Web 1.0 was data in one place.
Web 2.0 is the portability of the data.

Web 1.0 was about consuming (data).
Web 2.0 is about creating data.

Web 1.0 was homepages.
Web 2.0 is weblogs.

Web 1.0 was tracking information down.
Web 2.0 is having information coming to you

Web 1.0 was badging your content.
Web 2.0 is getting the answer out quickly.

Web 1.0 was slow transfer rates.
Web 2.0 is about broadband.

Web 1.0 was about limitations.
Web 2.0 is about state of mind.

Then, I also found a nice video explaining about web 2.0 on youtube so I thought that I should link it on the blog as it will make our blog more interesting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsa5ZTRJQ5w

What would be the best media to aware people about Web 2.0?

Video - 30
PowerPoint - 22
Audio- 11
Microsoft document- 16

Do you think Web 2.0 can be used at school for educational purposes?

Yes – 35

No - 8

Do you think Web 2.0 should be used in school? (Only students)

YES: 21 NO: 4

Which of the following do you use?

Facebook – 46
Google – 53
Yahoo- 32
Blog- 13
Myspace- 3
Orkut- 2
Youtube- 47
Gmail- 31
Wikipedia- 38

Do you know what Web 2.0 is?

YES:31

NO:28

Survey Results

I think we got quite a lot of results for our surveys. 29 from the students and 29 from the teachers. we learnt what we wanted to. But one mistake that cam up from the surveys was that our questions were not thought about; if a person did not know what Web 2.0 is, they could not answer most of the questions. I think if our survey does not prove to be useful that will be because of our mistake. The link to the results is below but I found out that the various pie charts I used to show are results do not come up in the document so, I will post them separately.

http://www.scribd.com/full/14212767?access_key=key-1sl2315a8k5lyveo1knv

The second survey was for the students and sent at the same time as the first one. It was sent to all the secondary students. All the questions were the same as the ones for the teachers except for that we forgot to ask the comments on Web 2.0 from the students and we asked one more question from the students asking them that whether they think that Web 2.0 should be used in school or not. Now, I think that we could have sent the same one to everyone and there was no point sending it twice - once to the teachers and once to the students. I think we took the decision of sending it to the teachers and the students sepeartely because we intended to ask the teachers about how they think that using WEB 2.0 will be useful for their particular subjects but we forgot to add it. So, now I think that while processing the results, it will be better to put the results from both the surveys together.

I tried linking this document but I could not so, I am just putting the survey for the students in this post:

· Do you know what Web2.0 is?
Yes/No

· What of the following do you use?
Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, YouTube, Orkut, Gmail, Myspace, Yahoo, Blog

· Do you think Web 2.0 is a good development or not? Why?

· Do you think Web 2.0 should be used in school?
Yes/ No

· Can it be used in the school for teaching purposes?
Yes/No
How?

· What would be the best media to aware people about Web 2.0? power point, video, audio, document, others

Here are the questions of our first survey. This survey was for the teachers as we thought that the view of the teachers is really important because they are the ones who are going to apply this for their teaching purposes and to develop the education system and the resources for the students. The first few questions were put to know whether the teachers know about Web 2.0 or not? Then, our plan was to find out about what they think about the development of Web 2.0 and whether it can be used in school or not. There was also a question directly connected to our product asking them - what is the best medium to aware people about Web 2.0 .

http://www.scribd.com/full/14066802?access_key=key-w4xbuzeaf4qk7mqqr9n

In what ways has technology influenced knowledge??

i think that all the technologies whether it is old or new, it let people's knowledge improve or develop, by giving new and more information to that person. it also lets people get used to the technology. this will effect the knowledge by getting the sources.
i also think that it effects the learning style. people will able to find their own style of learning, as well as to the teachers, it wil be easy for them because the students will be on their task and teachers will be needed when students ask. but sometimes it's not an easy task, because all the new technologies coming in and we have to determine how effective it is to our learning, whether it is useful or not. this is because it effects the students' learning and learning style. it is also same to the teachers. they have to find the appropriate technology to teach their students and develop their knowledge in understanding. but i think that most of the teachers find using technology helps them teach their students. computer is a good example of technology. it allows us to learn effectively, since it has got most of the useful sofware and internet

Reflection on the essential question.

Essential Question: In what ways has technology influenced knowledge?

According to me, I think in todays's life, technology plays a great role in the knowledge gained by the people. As the technology is increasing, the people are using it more and more to gain knowledge. The internet plays a major role in the lives of the people. Most of the people depend on the internet for various reasons. Even for educational purposes, technology plays a great role and it is a very good source for increasing the knowledge. I think, talking mainly about Web 2.0, it can become a very good source for the development of the knowledge, a person can just not post what he/she thinks but it can be very helpful in the discussion of the ideas and the views of the people can be put forward and therefore the knowledge is spread.

Reflection on the essential question.

I think that it is very good to use the web 2.0 becuase it affect our knowledge in many good ways. By using web2.0 we get to interact with many different people and also culture. technology has developed a lot in few years. It also developes our knowledge of our surrounding too, so i think technology plays a very important role in each of our lives.

Planning

We have made some plans to proceed with this design cycle. The first step is to
investigate the problem starting with the basic research of :

• what is Web2.0
• the tools available in Web2.0
• the software/hardware develpments to Web2.0
• how it can be harnessed educationally
• research on how we can make our product better
• human ingenuity-How can technology assist in sharing of views?
• environments-In what ways can environments influence technology choices?

After this, we are going to continue with the normal format of the design cycle by dividing the whole sections - Investigation, Design, Create into three equal parts so that everyone does an equal amount of work. This way, our project will work smoothly and finish off faster.